


a lie told often enough

by calciseptine



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 05:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calciseptine/pseuds/calciseptine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yamamoto's deceit is as tight as flesh to muscle, as muscle to bone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a lie told often enough

**Author's Note:**

> i don't really have anything to say for myself. :/

he says, "i hope you have a good time."

he laughs a little as the sentence finishes, the last syllables tilted into a wave of higher pitched noises. it irritates you, as it has always irritated you. you have seen the hardness in his eyes and in his soul; you do not know why he bothers to pretend to be more human than he is.

"shut up," you snarl and slam the car door shut.

inside, it is quiet and still.

.

when you were young, you read the dense words of philosophers. there was timelessness and truth in those texts that intrigued you, that made you cling to every vowel and every consonant. you had fled sicily months ago; you had given up on the church; you had given up on your father; you had given up on authority. you wanted to know if there was an absolute that you could not deny, as you had denied everything else.

slowly and achingly, you grew. you invested yourself in the tangible world with objects as mundane, as cheap, and as deadly as tobacco and dynamite. you thought the world chaos and all happenings chance. you buried your head in chemical reactions and mathematical equations; you believed them to be truer than words and truer than christ. by the time you reached namimori, the only thing you thought real was your skin and your brains and your blood and your bones.

now, the only truth you hold is _famiglia._

this is not to say you have been able to shake off the habits of the past. you can still construct a bomb out of the chemicals you find under the sink, a bomb you throw into the main room when you're cornered and negotiations have soured. you still ponder the difference between moral universalism and moral nihilism as you load your faithful beretta. you still touch the simple cross inked on your sternum for protection and, after you have put a slug in the brain of every man that betrayed the vongola, you bless yourself.

why you think of his laughter—amid death and disquiet—you do not know. you do not wish to know. this truth will only hurt you and you wish to be spared of it.

damn yamamoto, anyway.

.

you have a cut along your cheek, a gift from a grunt who had thrown a punch that you could not dodge. he had been wearing a blunt ring and the wound appears more severe than it is. you dress it yourself in the rearview mirror, with an alcohol swab and a butterfly bandage from the first aid kit you pulled out of the trunk. the sting becomes a throb becomes a soreness and, by the time you return to the manor in palermo, the hurt is gone.

the first thing you do is report to the tenth. his expression never wavers when you tell him that the negotiations failed—no one had expected otherwise—but he does let loose a sigh when you finish speaking. though the man who is _don_ of the vongola is very different from the no good boy from namimori, there are a few things that have never changed; his dislike for violence and bloodshed, no matter how necessary, still remain.

"thank you, gokudera," he says. "you'll have to coordinate with dino tomorrow, but get some rest first. you did your best."

when you were young, you would have cringed at his final four words. now, you are not so arrogant as to believe that you can always do what the tenth wishes. you can try—and try and try—but there are more variables in life than can be accounted for, and you know that your best is all you can feasibly give.

so you bow, and leave.

.

what you hate most about yamamoto is this: he smiles and he laughs and he acts the fool, but there is nothing about him that is truly carefree or light.

much to your shame and your ire, it took you years to see beneath his veneer. his deceit is as tight as flesh to muscle, as muscle to bone, and only in the marrow of his framework can you see who he truly is. he is good at hiding himself. perhaps if you did not wear your deep fears and crippling insecurities as your armor, you would envy him.

instead, you loathe him.

"that looks like it hurts," he says when he finally finds you. there is a hole in your suit coat and the left side of your rib cage will be a haphazard watercolor of yellow, green, and plum in the morning. you snatch your eyes away from your reflection in the mirror and sneer at his upturned lips and easy posture.

"i didn't fucking say you could come in," you spit. "get the fuck out."

he doesn't listen to you. he hasn't since he figured you out, years ago when you were still children playing an adult game. time has done little to soften the sting of his intimate understanding.

"i'm not in the mood for your bullshit," you continue. each syllable is like acid and you turn to him. you step into his space and fill it with the sharp and brittle edges of your body. this kind of intimidation never works on him—though it would be a lie to say that any intimidation works on him. he is calm; he is steady; he cannot be moved.

when he reaches up and touches the wound on your cheek, it takes all you have not to flinch away from his warm fingers. when he murmurs, "hayato," it is a benediction that you refuse to answer. when he covers your mouth with his own, you refuse to bend to it.

he kisses you for a long time. his lips are soft and they yield to the pressure he exerts. it is a chaste touch, however, and other than the light caress of his fingertips, your mouth is the only other place he lingers.

"i love you," he says when he pulls away.

"i hate you," you snarl.

the barb must hurt—it has to hurt. yet, for all the hurt you believe you inspire, his response is a smile.

.

you are a stripped wire. your life has not been easy and, though you deflect the cursory glances you receive with insults and foul words, it is not hard for an outsider to see your insides. you are who you are.

yamamoto is everything you are not. where you ignite, he smolders. when you roar, he laughs. if you lash out, he remains still. these traits would not irritate you as much as they do if only you could know the realness of them—yet for as long as you have known yamamoto, you have never known which parts of him are real and which are fake.

there is a disconnect between you and him and you know he has been trying to close that gap for as long as he has known you. he wants to reach you—he can press his mouth to yours, place his hands upon your body, and push and push and push inside—but no matter how close he gets, he is never close enough.

you do not allow it.

you cannot allow it.

all your life, you have fought to know truth. you believe in absolutes; nothing will ever be black and white, but the universe was built upon unshakeable foundations that trickle down into the anomaly that is human existence. you can pick out these truths in other people—like the goodness in the tenth—but, to you, the truths in yamamoto are unknowable.

you want to believe in him. you want to so badly you can taste it like the iron of blood on your tongue. you so desperately want to reach out to him in the way he seems to reach for you that you ache. it makes the hollow space beneath your breastbone throb.

yamamoto has done all he can. the distance that remains is up to you to close. you think you know what awaits you on the other side and you would jump without hesitation if only you had reassurance. you cannot know for sure. what you need is to take a leap of faith.

unfortunately, the only faith you have is a cross you tattooed on your chest. the rest is superstition, and habit.

.

after you shed your clothes and wash the worst of the dust and sweat and blood off, you collapse into bed. he follows you like your shadow: into the shower, under the sheets, and into sleep. somewhere between consciousness and rest, he loses his smile and presses his knuckles against the darkening bruises on your side.

"i would kill them all for this," he whispers. his voice is soft and low, in honesty if not confession. "without hesitation, without remorse."

you believe, as much as you can, that this is the real yamamoto. yamamoto does not smile; he does not laugh; he is not polite; he does not care. his serenity stems not from inner tranquility and peace of mind, but from a rage so vast and bottomless that even you cannot comprehend it. if it weren't for this struggle he calls love, yamamoto would burn the world to ashes. instead, he presses his fingers harder into your bruise, as though he were trying to make your hurt one of his creation.

the pain is very real: grounding, understandable, knowable.

"i already did," you reply.


End file.
